Former New York Giants star Plaxico Burress, 31-year-old
There is a perception that low tolerance, lack of patience and lack of sympathy is hardly applied whenever an African American, especially a wealthy athletics, acts “stupidly” and commits an infraction against the law. There are lots of incidents and cases that come to mind, but due to the lack of time, I will limit myself to the case of Former New York Giants star Plaxico Burress, 31-year-old. In the court of public opinion, you could almost hear people shouting in unison, "Crucify him! Crucify Him!"
In his New York Daily News article, Michael Daley noted, “Sending Plaxico Burress wouldn’t bring back anyone killed by a gun crime, but the message it would send could prevent future gun deaths.” Prevent future gun deaths?????? Imprisoning Buress will not accomplish a damn thing. He will be much more useful and productive using his own money and time working with gun violent offenders. There are lots of other effective ways to prevent future gun deaths, Mr. Daley. Imprisoning “them” do not accomplish a thing. There are millions of “them” already in prisons around the nation.
Burress’ expression of remorse and pleads for mercy before the grand jury landed on deaf ears. Why should they even have the compassion to consider his pleads – after hearing newspapers, the mayor, and the district attorney calling for jail time.
On Monday, a grand jury in Manhattan indicted Burress on weapons charges for shooting himself in the thigh at a Manhattan nightclub. He also faces a minimum prison sentence of 3½ years if convicted, prosecutors announced Monday. The indictment charged Burress with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon and one count of reckless endangerment, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said.
Yes, without a doubt, the grand jury did applied the law to the facts of Burress’ case. There is no argument about that. According to Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, “the accidental shooting at the Latin Quarter nightclub on Nov. 29 was treated like any similar case against any other defendant."
Perhaps you’ve heard of a guy call Dick Cheney? Vice President Cheney accidentally shot and wounded 78-year-old Harry Whittington, during a weekend quail hunt on a friend’s South Texas ranch. Whittington was hit by several pellets of birdshot and hospitalized. The Kenedy County Sheriff, Ray Salinas said he was investigating the shooting but consider it an accident. Was Cheney’s case treated like any similar case?
Burress’ lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said "When you have the mayor and the district attorney both publicly demanding a maximum prison sentence, it was perhaps too much to hope for the grand jury to conduct a sympathetic review of the unique facts of this sad case."
An NFL spokesman said the league will not pursue any disciplinary action against Pierce, so far as the Giants are concerned, that all but ends the eight-month ordeal.
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If the grand jury in Manhattan were not blinded by other things they would not have indicted Burress on weapons charges. Especially since the only person that was shot was himself.
Burress has a handgun carry permit issued by the state of Florida, for he passed a fingerprint-based background check.
Since he is a temporary residence of New Jersey – the state of New York state does not issue handgun licenses to non-residents.
It makes me wonder if NY’s non-resident handgun ban is unconstitutional by discrimination against nonresidents.
As much as I hate Dick Cheney, his gun WAS registered…
Lets compare apples to apples here.